No one expects highway construction to be convenient. Roads need maintenance. Infrastructure projects require lane closures, detours, and occasional disruption. Most drivers understand that. It's part of living in a growing region.

What happened on Highway 1 this past Sunday night was something different.

My family was driving home from North Vancouver to Chilliwack. Under normal conditions, it's a trip of roughly 80 minutes. Instead, it took more than three and a half hours.

And we were far from alone.

As the evening wore on, social media filled with stories from people trapped in the same gridlock. As we drove on, it looked as though some people had potentially run out of gas. We could see parents in vehicles with tired children. Workers trying to get home. Others on a night shift perhaps trying to get to work.

Taken together, the result was thousands of people stuck in traffic, frustrated, exhausted, and increasingly stressed. That isn't merely an inconvenience. It's a safety issue.

Credit is due to Fraser Valley Today reporter Mike Vanden Bosch, whose reporting Monday morning added important context.

Abbotsford Police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Walker acknowledged that communication around the closure was inadequate and said police would be meeting with the province this week to improve how future closures are communicated.

"The overnight closure of Highway 1 eastbound at Mt. Lehman Road caused significant frustration for motorists due to limited advance public communication," Walker said.

Some people have pointed out that electronic message boards warned drivers about the closure. But the question isn't whether notice technically existed.

The question is whether it worked. Judging by the thousands of drivers who found themselves trapped in hours-long delays Sunday night, the answer appears to be no.

What makes the situation particularly frustrating is that, according to Vanden Bosch's reporting, the Ministry of Transportation has typically notified media outlets in advance when significant Highway 1 closures or traffic pattern changes are planned as part of the widening project. This time, that did not happen.

Communication is not separate from traffic management. It is traffic management.

If drivers know about a closure ahead of time, they can change their plans, delay a trip, choose an alternate route, or prepare accordingly. If they don't, congestion becomes inevitable. And when congestion stretches into hours, it creates risks.

Picture the conditions Sunday night: tired drivers, frustrated drivers, distracted drivers, worried parents, and vehicles running low on fuel. Children became restless. Tempers grew short. People worried about getting home, getting to work, or simply finding a washroom.

This is not the environment where people make their best decisions behind the wheel.

The Fraser Valley is one of the fastest-growing regions in British Columbia. Highway 1 is the backbone of the region's transportation network, carrying commuters, families, and commercial traffic every day.

When a major closure occurs on that corridor, the public should receive every reasonable opportunity to prepare.

No one is arguing that construction should stop. The Highway 1 widening project is an important investment that will ultimately improve mobility throughout the region.

But the success of a transportation project should not be measured solely by what gets built. It should also be measured by how effectively people can move through the region while construction is underway.

On Sunday night, that standard was not met.

A traffic jam is frustrating. A traffic jam where people run out of gas, leave their vehicles to find a washroom, and spend three-and-a-half hours completing what should have been an 80-minute drive is something else entirely.

The province can—and should—do better next time.